House Project Goals 2020

I have told you all about our completed kitchen. It was a slow remodel that took a little over three years from start to finish, but we finally checked the last thing off the list.

I gave you a report on how we did with last year's house goals . . . what we accomplished, and what we didn't.

I even told you all about our pesky wall. 

Now it's time for me to share our house goals for 2020: 

CONTINUE LANDSCAPING and BUILD FENCE     

We'll replace (again) the limelight hydrangea in the bed in front of the house, and then we'll move around to the south side of the house, straightening the border, tidying the beds.

We have the materials to begin a fence across the back of our property and we hope to begin soon! We have imagined our backyard as a little oasis to enjoy outside our big picture window. Since last winter, the lot that adjoins ours to the back has been sold and a new house is being built, so we think that the privacy is another incentive to start on that fence! Wasn't it Robert Frost who said, "Good fences make good neighbors?"

GET THAT PESKY WALL RIGHT     

As I told you in this post, we have another plan for that wall in the dining room! When Ron has a break between bigger projects, he will make a frame for the "Peaceable Kingdom" print. We're hoping for success this time, but one never knows!  

PAINT KITCHEN?     
This one is a "maybe."

My long time readers may remember that parts of the kitchen trim have been painted three times already. (Full story ~here~.) You may also remember that I promised Ron that, even if I didn't like it, I would not ask him to paint the kitchen again. (Well, not until it really needed painting . . . but not just because I wanted a color change.)

I am keeping that promise. I will not ask him to paint the kitchen.

But . . . 

(You knew there was a "but," didn't you?) 

But if we had seen a wonderful color at a restaurant in Lancaster . . . and if I had happened to ask the lady in the restaurant what that color was . . . and if she had kindly taken my phone number, done some research, and left a message on my answering machine with that information . . . and if Ron had mentioned that we might paint the kitchen this spring . . .

Well, what would you do? 

REMODEL MASTER BEDROOM
This is our biggest project of the year, and we're smack dab in the middle of it right now!

When we first saw Pineapple House, we knew that this would be our bedroom, even though it is not the biggest bedroom of the four. First of all, it is in a separate wing from the other bedrooms, so it is the most private. It has an adjacent bathroom, as well as a little vestibule into the wing. It is mere steps away from the kitchen and morning coffee. And it has charm with its angled ceilings, tiny windows, and mismatched closet doors! 

This is what we plan to do in the master bedroom:

1) Replace the tile ceiling with wallboard. This is what has prevented us from tackling this room before now. Replacing a ceiling is a big deal. At least, it's a messy deal. However, Ron did not want to paint the room without doing the ceiling at the same time, so we have waited. But now is the time! 

2) Paint the paneling! 🎉This will make a huge difference in this room, making it brighter, fresher, and more cheerful. We are painting it the same color as all of the walls in our house. (It is a color match of an old Valspar color, Antique White.) 

3) Paint the trim. Actually, we'd both like to paint the trim in Behr's Decorator White (the same color that we used in the other bedrooms), keeping the background color palette neutral. But the windows in this room are brown, obviously chosen to coordinate with the paneling, and I am afraid that the brown would stand out like a sore thumb against white trim. (Even if we could paint the vinyl part of the window, there are still the brown grilles between the panes.) Most likely, we will paint the trim Quaker Green (as in the vestibule outside the bedroom), although we have also considered the same tan that is in the living room (based on Linen White, an Olde Century Paint color). 

4) Replace the floor. The room had carpet, and we are not carpet people. I assumed it would be a simple thing to replace it with hardwood. Apparently I was waaaayyy out of the loop as far as flooring choices. Laminate . . . bamboo . . . engineered hardwood . . . solid hardwood (except that it is not simply lumber, but a layer of wood over a wood product) . . . too many choices! And none of them seem like "real" wood to me! Sigh . . .

5) Construct and hang wooden shutters for the three windows.  

Despite the challenging choices in remodeling this room, we are excited about having a bright and pretty bedroom soon! And it must be soon, because our Kati is coming for a visit (and a baby shower!!) in March, and Ron and I need to be out of the guest room and back in the master bedroom before she arrives!

(Nothing like a deadline for motivation.)

Those are the projects that we hope to accomplish here at Pineapple House in 2020. 

Of course, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that." (James 5:14)